19 April 2016

Our first look - Youfoodz Canberra

| Ryan Johnstone
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For those who don’t have the time or patience to prepare fresh meals every day, and those who prefer to avoid frozen meals, Youfoodz may be just what you need. Youfoodz chefs prepare healthy, fresh, convenient meals cooked in Queensland and delivered to Canberra every week. Whilst this seems like a long way for fresh food to be taken, the meals are sealed with a ‘Modified Atmosphere Packaging’ to keep the contents fresh for 7-9 days. Last week I went into Nutrition Station inside the City Fitness First and picked up a few meals to try.

I ended up with three meals as recommended by Aidan from Youfoodz which included Roasted Pork Schnitzel, Healthy Meatballs & Mushroom Casserole, and Jamaican Jerk Chicken. All of them were $9.95 and needed to be microwaved for 90-120 seconds. I started off with pretty low expectations, which were pretty much confirmed by the pork schnitzel. It came with beans and potato wedges and I personally think that wedges should not be microwaved since they usually end up soggy. The schnitzel itself was not awful but by no means was it outstanding. the meat was slightly chewy and overall underwhelming.

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After the pork I was in no rush to try the other meals; I wasn’t really home for meals the next couple of days so they stayed in the fridge for the meantime. When I got around to it, I had both the jerk chicken and the meatballs since they’re all pretty small portions. My main concern was the chicken coming with coleslaw and potato salad and being microwaved – as i definitely don’t usually microwave either of these (does anyone?). Despite this, the chicken was actually delicious, it was tender and flavoursome and melted in my mouth. I avoided the coleslaw and the potato all together because I knew I wouldn’t enjoy it being hot, but I would definitely eat the chicken again.

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Next up was the meatballs with a mushroom casserole. It also came with a side of tangy roast potato, sweet potato, red onion & sliced gherkins however when I compared it to the photo online i’m almost certain they forgot the mushrooms. The mushrooms were not missed though since the meatballs were succulent and tasty. The potato sides were also delicious although i would’ve preferred a larger portion of meatballs.

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All in all the meals were good and I’d have the meatballs and chicken again; however, I probably wouldn’t go back to the schnitzel. If you tend to have a larger appetite I would not recommend eating the one meal on its own as the serving sizes are relatively small compared to other packaged meals on the shelves. There are plenty more options available on their website which I’d be tempted to try one day with everything from carb-less pizza omelette, to chicken enchilada, and salted caramel protein balls.

The meals are available for delivery through their website www.youfoodzcanberra.com where all their meal options are listed. You can also pick up the meals from Nutrition Station at Fitness First in the City or from Australian Sports Nutrition (ASN) at 1/4 Lonsdale St Braddon. Call 0410 069 134 for more information.

Youfoodz provided meals described in this article to RiotACT at no charge for review purposes.

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Perhaps the Jerk chicken one was not to be heated?

Kalliste said :

rubaiyat said :

Don’t want to judge based on just reading about the “freshest meals with a shelf life of 7-9 days”.

So just placed an order for a thousand and one Free Clean Chicken and Broccolis to be delivered to my place.

If the cat doesn’t like the broccolli it can just push it to the side of the bowl.

hah, I wondered if they had made a mistake on the pricing! Did it actually let you order a whole bunch of them for free?

They seem to be having this as a “taster” when you order $69 or more.

You get an insight into the way I think when I wondered who’s done this website and tried a 1000 in the number field and it wouldn’t accept it but 1001 and it did!

I didn’t put the order through however. I don’t actually have a cat. 🙂

I compared the nutrition panels of the Youfoodz Roast Chicken & Country Veg (available by post or from the pick-up points above for $9.95) with the frozen McCain Roast Chicken Dinner (available from just about any supermarket freezer near you for $7.50-ish), and the Red Rooster Classic Roast. Youfoodz isn’t a particularly healthy, fresh or convenient option.

The Youfoodz Roast Chicken & Country Veg has more kilojoules, more fat, and more sugar per 100g, and only marginally less sodium. The McCain Roast Chicken Dinner has 368kJ, 0.9g of saturated fat, 1.2g of sugar and 300mg of sodium per 100g. The Youfoodz Roast Chicken & Country Veg has 550kJ, 1.3g of saturated fat, 2.8g of sugar and 202mg of sodium per 100g. The McCain Roast Chicken Dinner has a serving size of 320g and 1180kJ per serve. The Youfoodz Roast Chicken & Country Veg has a serving size of 350g and 1920kJ per serve.

If you’re dead against frozen foods, the Classic Roast (quarter chicken with pumpkin, carrot, potato and gravy) at Red Rooster is a healthier option, gram-for-gram, than the Youfoodz Roast Chicken & Country Veg. It has 310kJ, 0.4g of saturated fat, 2.0g of sugar and 302g of sodium per 100g. Although the serving size is much larger – at 560g, with the whole thing packing in 1740kJ. Red Rooster will deliver it to your door for $13.99 – saving you a trip to Civic or Braddon, and much quicker than the postie.

batmantrilogy said :

Thanks for giving your opinion but one must try it out themselves before any judgement.
Pretty good stuff for emergencies although i might stick with the frozen ones :p

Not necessarily. I have made a judgment that it is undesirable to be hit in the testicles with a baseball bat and have no need to try it for myself.

rubaiyat said :

Don’t want to judge based on just reading about the “freshest meals with a shelf life of 7-9 days”.

So just placed an order for a thousand and one Free Clean Chicken and Broccolis to be delivered to my place.

If the cat doesn’t like the broccolli it can just push it to the side of the bowl.

hah, I wondered if they had made a mistake on the pricing! Did it actually let you order a whole bunch of them for free?

batmantrilogy12:20 pm 22 Dec 15

Thanks for giving your opinion but one must try it out themselves before any judgement.
Pretty good stuff for emergencies although i might stick with the frozen ones :p

Masquara said :

Ew – week-old vacuum packed scrambled eggs for breakfast (no toast) – $10 for a 375 gram serve.

This. Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.

Don’t want to judge based on just reading about the “freshest meals with a shelf life of 7-9 days”.

So just placed an order for a thousand and one Free Clean Chicken and Broccolis to be delivered to my place.

If the cat doesn’t like the broccolli it can just push it to the side of the bowl.

Your dinner prepared in and delivered from Queensland! Fantastically, decadently surreal! Why order in a pizza from an outlet say about 3kms away when you can get your food prepared 1,200kms away.

More sensibly, if you don’t have time to cook every night do what some people I know do. Have a big cook up at the weekend and freeze your own meals. And it only took them an hour or two to do this too, at the most. Then coming home late from work during the week it’s easy to pop one of these into a microwave. I have never done the ‘big’ cook up, but I usually have a few home made frozen meals in the freezer, so tonight for instance, coming home late and going to prepare dinner at 9pm all I had to do was pop one of these in the microwave and grab some fruit for desert. Most of the fruit came from the garden or cycling distance plum trees. But how boring of me. I should have contacted someone in Queensland to pick some fruit from their garden and send it to me. Get with it sort of thing. I am too old fashioned.
And ten dollars for one course of a microwave meal! Fifty dollars a working week. (Plus delivery cost.) Am I still too old fashioned by suggesting this would be better spent paying off the mortgage?

Decadent!

can we get a confirmation on if this a paid or sponsored article or not?

Charlotte Harper11:10 am 22 Dec 15

Thanks, farq. The article was not paid or sponsored other than in kind via the provision of meals for review. Have updated the post with a disclaimer noting that at the end.

I can’t figure out their target market. Definitely not the health-conscious. Their many variants on protein balls aren’t packaged for the gym market. The sweet potato wedges need to be crisped under a grill, so if you have a grill, why not coat some sweet potato in oil and chuck them under self-same grill. Good luck to them, but I just can’t see a segment of the Canberra market that will sustain them. Other than patients in RCH – the packaging looks suspiciously like the old hospital chilled bulk serve stuff. Sorry guys.

MERC600 said :

Hmmm. Looks nice, and they do have a good range. However they don’t give the weight of the meal.
I buy a few of those frozen types for the occasional late night meal, and they come in around 350gms.
With them I find I need to nuke a good size potato just to pad things out somewhat.

But I might give it a whirl.

They give the (very tiny) weight under the “nutrition” tab. The servings are minute.

Ew – week-old vacuum packed scrambled eggs for breakfast (no toast) – $10 for a 375 gram serve.

Anything with the nice words “Nutrition” and “Fresh” printed on the plastic packaging with a thousand food kilometres on the clock is fine by me.

Who cares what it tastes like!

I have to say they have a great looking website but the reality of the food seems somewhat different.. plus if you want it delivered it’ll cost you an extra $15.

Is microwaving the food the only option? I can’t imagine why they’d provide a schnitzel if you couldn’t fry it up.. it doesn’t sound appealing in the slightest.

Hmmm. Looks nice, and they do have a good range. However they don’t give the weight of the meal.
I buy a few of those frozen types for the occasional late night meal, and they come in around 350gms.
With them I find I need to nuke a good size potato just to pad things out somewhat.

But I might give it a whirl.

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